Fujian Tulou architecture traces its origins

Was Fujian Tulou created by Hakka or Minnan?

The veins of the leaves

In the 1980s, the US satellite discovered in space orbit that in the areas of Nanjing County, Pinghe County, Hua'an County, and Longyan Yongding County, which belong to Zhangzhou in the southwestern mountains of Fujian, China deployed countless missile silos.

In 2008, Fujian Tulou successfully applied for heritage and was officially included in the World Heritage List, becoming a popular tourist punch card in China. Fujian Tulou is a large rammed earth residential building, tulou is generally composed of two or three circles, there are three to four floors, above the people live, the first floor as a kitchen, into the traditional Chinese Bagua feng shui concept, become the local villagers livable and the best fortress against bandits. Because before applying for heritage, tulou was almost unloved in China, only a few tulou in Longyan Yongding were famous, which tulou was well decorated, including those built by Hu Wenhu, overseas Chinese in Nanyang, so the number of visitors was quite large. Due to the early publicity, most of the media called Longyan Yongding "Hakka Tulou".

Well, here's the problem. Minnan people expressed dissatisfaction, believing that Tulou architecture was a building invented and created by Minnan people. There are several reasons for this:

I. Mr. Zeng Wuyue, an expert on the study of Zhangzhou Tulou, believes that the Fujian Yuantulou originated in the middle and lower reaches of the Jiulong River and adjacent areas, and is the product of the anti-Wu people of Zhangzhou.

Tulou was created by the Zhangzhou people in the lower reaches of the Jiulong River and adjacent areas of the Ming Dynasty in the bloody rain and wind against the Wukou, and its earliest appearance should be during the Ming Jiajing period. This can be confirmed by many historical sources. In the sixth year of Ming Jiajing (1527), Liu Tianzhi of Longxi Zhixian county did not have any record of "Tulou" in the "Longxi County Chronicle", but in the sixth year of Ming Chongzhen (1623), the "Haicheng County Chronicle" recorded a poem of "Yongtulou" by Jiajing Bingchen thirty-five years (1556), the governor of Lianzhou, Guangdong, and Huang Wenhao, a Haicheng person, which is the earliest poem of Yongtulou in history, and before that, there was no proper noun of "Tulou" in all historical books in the country. The "Chronicle of Zhangzhou Prefecture" in the first year of the Ming Dynasty (1573) records: "Zhangzhou Tubao is old and fashionable,...... Since the 40th year of Jiajing, thieves have sprung up everywhere, and civil groups have built earthen enclosures and earthen buildings, especially in coastal areas. And listed the number of earthen castles and earthen buildings in Longxi, Zhangpu, Zhao'an, and Haicheng. This is the first time in the official literature that the term "Tulou" appears, and at that time, there was no record of Tulou in Pinghe, Longyan and Zhangping, which belonged to Zhangzhou Capital, which shows that during the Jiajing period, Tulou was only distributed on both sides of the lower reaches of the Jiulong River. During the Ming Dynasty (1621-1627), Chen Tianding, a jinshi of Longxi, wrote to Shi Bangyao, the prefect of Zhangzhou, the "Beixi Jisheng", saying that at that time, "the fireworks were dense, and the buildings and forts were facing each other", and the villages below Longling (now Huafeng Town, Hua'an County) were "fortified by mountains", which shows that there were many castles in the middle and lower reaches of the Jiulong River at that time. Today, in the middle and lower reaches of the Jiulong River, Tianbao, Shangping, Xiandu and other places still retain the Tuzhai Round Tower from Ming Jiajing to the early Qing Dynasty, which is empirical evidence. The reason why Tulou first appeared in the lower reaches of the Kowloon River stemmed from the self-defense measures taken by the people in order to cope with the sudden plague. At that time, the Wokou landed from the sea and quickly flowed along the Jiulong River to the interior, and the officers and men were caught off guard, and it was difficult to protect themselves, so the people had no choice but to rely on their own strength, take materials from the spot, and build earthen forts and earthen buildings to resist. This can be seen from the time when Huang Wenhao wrote "Wing Tu Lou". Huang Wenhao was raised in the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing (1555) and ascended to the throne the following year, and it was precisely in the same year that Jiajing Bingchen began to carry out large-scale harassment of Zhangzhou, when the people rushed to build a castle, Huang Wenhao can be described as a historical witness to the birth of Tulou. This "Wing Tu Lou" truly records the reasons for the birth of Tu Lou, "leaning on the mountain for the city, chopping wood for the soldier", referring to the geographical environment of the Tu Lou and the reason for the construction of the building, "the empty pavilion spans the layers", indicating that the low hall houses in southern Fujian are difficult to resist the invasion of the Wokou, and only multi-storey pavilions can protect the safety of life. Qing Kangxi's "Chronicle of Zhangpu County" also clearly pointed out: "The placement of the earthen fort was mostly due to the Ming Dynasty, and the people suffered from the suffering of thieves and Wokou, so the powerful people led the people to build forts according to dangers to prevent thieves from harming their ears." "The prototype of Tulou is the official Sea Defense City.

2. Zheng Chenggong resisted the Qing Dynasty for twenty years, and in order to prevent Zheng Chenggong from harassing, the Qing court issued the most strictly prohibited sea order in history.

At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty's entry into the Customs, the military resistance in the south has not ended, especially the Zheng clan on the southeast coast took Xiamen and Kinmen as their bases to resist the Qing Dynasty through various means. In order to prevent the intrusion of the Zheng forces, the Qing court promulgated a series of strict sea prohibition policies.

The Qing court repeatedly summoned Zheng Chenggong, but was categorically rejected. In order to cut off the local people's support for the Ming and Zheng forces, the Qing court began to ban the sea in 1652. Huang Wu, a general of the Zheng clan, proposed to the Qing court the "Five Strategies for Leveling Thieves", which included a 20-year relocation order. The Qing court adopted the proposal of relocating the border, and moved the coastal residents from Shandong to Guangdong thirty miles on the grounds that the four provinces of Jiangnan, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong were approaching the "nest of thieves" of Ming Zheng from time to time and the people were not at peace. In order to cut off the relocation of the people's concern, all the houses outside the boundary were burned down. According to the data, Guangdong and Fujian provinces have abandoned more than 5.76 million mu of land, and Zhejiang Province has lost thousands of mu of good land. When Zheng Keshuang descended in 1683, the history of relocation officially ended. During this period, the tulou in southern Fujian, mainly along the coast of Zhangzhou, was completely destroyed. Only in the areas of Pinghe, Nanjing, and Hua'an, which are close to the mountains, there are still thousands of tulou.

3. Longyan has always been under the jurisdiction of Zhangzhou in history, and the people's customs are similar. The Hakka tulou in the area of Longyan Yongding and Nanjing in Zhangzhou was built relatively late, and from ancient times to before liberation, it was a fort for Hakka people to defend themselves against bandits.

There are 360 existing tulou buildings in Longyan Yongding and more than 260 existing in Longyan Moderate Town. But it was generally built later. For example, the Huaiyuan Building in Nanjing, Zhangzhou was created by overseas Chinese remittances of silver in the 30th year of the Qing Dynasty (1904), and there are more than 260 tulou buildings in Longyan Moderate Town, which are more dense places of Fujian tulou and are also built by the "tobacco merchants" of the Qing Dynasty. Longyan Yongding's "Wanjin Oil" brothers Hu Wenhu and Hu Wenbao began to do pharmaceutical business and other businesses in the early nineteenth century, since then, Tiger Biao Wanjin Oil and other drugs have become a must-have in China and Southeast Asia, known to all ages, and the Hu brothers have also become famous "millionaires" and unique "pharmaceutical kings" among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. They also built a tulou in their hometown of Yongding, of course, only for a hundred years.

Because the Longyan Hakka family earlier publicized that the Tulou was built by the Hakka, the whole country has always believed that this is the case, and the external propaganda claims that it is "Hakka Tulou".

However, if this is the case, why are there many places in Ganzhou, Jiangxi and Meizhou, Guangdong, where there are a large number of Hakka people, why has there not been such an architectural form as Tulou? The Hakka immigrated from the north to the south, and did not find the construction of such a building as tulou along the way?

Facts speak louder than words. Minnan Tulou is a defensive building created by the Minnan people in the struggle against the Wu and bandits since the Ming Dynasty, and is the architectural achievement of the Minnan people. We should be the original source and correctly publicize the Tulou and Tulou culture in southern Fujian!